


The One Where Sam Meets An Insufferable Jerk

by Moorishflower



Series: A Cold Academic Hell [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-06
Updated: 2010-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Winchester is almost ready to graduate - one more year, and he'll have his degree, and he'll be able to continue his studies to become a lawyer. But between his dick advisor, his brother (who's freaking out for reasons Sam isn't sure of), and the new (also a dick) advisor that his brother introduces him to, Sam's life isn't as clear-cut as he'd like it to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Sam Meets An Insufferable Jerk

When Sam was seventeen, and getting ready to graduate high school, he applied to a handful of colleges _just in case_. He’d lived on the road since he was a baby, and it was unlikely that he was going to be settling down any time soon (not as long as he stayed with his family, anyways), but it was _just in case_ he decided to leave his brother to his father’s whims, _just in case_ he decided that severing all his ties with his family would be worth it. It had come as a huge surprise to him when he received first one acceptance letter, and then two, and then _four_ , until finally he’d fanned them all out on the motel table and he’d been looking at ten different colleges, seven of them offering him partial scholarships, two of them offering full rides. Colleges spread all across the country, with next to nothing in common aside from the fact that they were large, well-thought-of universities, and all but one of them had wanted _him_. Not his father, not his brother, _him_.

Sam had delayed for almost two years. He had shrugged off that desire, to get away from his overbearing, drunken father ( _abusive_ , some part of him still whispers, because what else do you call it when your father throws a bottle at you, even if he misses? What else do you call it when your father accuses you of being lazy, worthless, a waste of time?), away from the bizarre transience of his family’s lifestyle. He had stayed with Dean, because as much as Dean believed that Sam needed his help, the opposite had also been true. Dean was every bit as messed up, emotionally, as their father was. As Sam probably was, too.

And then their father had died. And Sam told his brother that he was leaving.

Dean, after some thought, had followed him.

~

“Fuck,” Dean says. He’s leaning over a notebook, and a print-out of…something. Notes, Sam thinks. Dean doesn’t have a laptop or a printer of his own, which means he either has to brave the campus computer labs, or use the ancient desktop that they’ve owned for practically forever. This means that, whenever Dean wants to print something, or download an attachment for class, he has to come to Sam for help. Sam doesn’t recognize this particular sheet of paper; he wonders how Dean got it. “ _Fuck_. I don’t understand _any_ of this.”

  
“What, your notes?” He leans over the table, squinting at the notebook and trying to figure out what class it’s for. It’s not for Psych, Dean’s Psych notebook is blue and this one is green.

In-text citations one of the headers says. Ah. English fifteen.

“No,” Dean says. “No, it’s this…thing. This degree audit thing.”

Sam feels a surge of indulgence rush through him. His brother is useless when it comes to technology, but give him a car or a gun and he’s happy as a duck in a swimming pool. He wonders what Dean is planning on majoring in. Engineering? One of the sciences? “Oh, _that_. What about it?”

“I don’t know what any of this shit _means_.”

Sam reaches over Dean’s arm and grabs some of the papers he’s shuffling around, gathering them up and putting them in order before he tries to read anything. Dean’s degree audit is a mess of required courses, a handful of pluses, a lot of minuses. “You’re supposed to take them to your advisor, and _they_ tell you what it means.”

“Screw that. Your advisor hates you. I’m not risking it.”

“Zachariah doesn’t…” Sam pauses, because he doesn’t want to _lie_ to Dean – the truth is, Zachariah _is_ a massive asshole, and Sam’s been contemplating trying to switch to a new one for two years, now. He just…hasn’t gotten around to it. It’s a medium-sized campus, but Zachariah is the only advisor he knows. “Yeah, okay, he hates me. But that guy is a douche, and you’ve got a totally _different_ advisor. Look, I’ll ask Jess, maybe she knows him. Or knows someone else who does.”

“Fuck,” Dean mutters. He looks unbelievably dejected for a moment, but then he gets a hold of himself, puts his righteous indignation boots back on, and jabs his finger at the papers that Sam is holding. “What’s this little minus sign?”

There are a bunch of little minus signs – it’s only Dean’s first semester, and he hasn’t completed all that much in the way of course requirements, but he’s getting there. Sam has faith in him. He draws his finger down the page until Dean finally nods, and he comes to a stop next to…

“Oh, dude.” Sam can’t repress a slight wince. “You didn’t take the first year seminar?”

“What’s the first year seminar?”

Sam’s not entirely sure on the answer. He took the class, of course, but the majority of it was lost in a haze of papers for other classes, lectures, notes, tests. He doesn’t remember the FYS class demanding a lot of work. “It’s this thing you’re supposed to take,” he explains. “That teaches you…how to use the library, how to take notes, that sort of thing. It’s a required course. You can’t graduate without it.”

Dean stares at where Sam’s thumb rests, eyes fierce and shoulders hunched, tense. Dean hates getting things wrong – their father had demanded perfection, but whereas Sam had seen the folly in it (no one, after all, can be perfect), Dean had forced himself to bend to their father’s will in increasingly stupid, increasingly _dangerous_ ways. He doesn’t take failure easily – the first time he got a grade less than a B, he’d needed an entire hour to calm himself down, but he’d still been too stubborn (or too afraid of admitting failure) to go to the professor and ask for help.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dean says, and Sam realizes that this isn’t going to be any different.

~

Sam hates his advisor. During the first semester of his freshman year (during which, Sam would argue, it is _crucial_ that you get yourself oriented), Mr. Adler had been polite, but distant. He had dutifully helped Sam register for his classes, had informed him which were important for a student considering pre-law and which would fill his general education requirements, and just…being helpful _in general_. But when Sam had come to him with specifics? When he’d wanted to know whether it would be better to take this class over this one, and what were Mr. Adler’s opinions? And Sam had been nineteen, so not exactly a mature, sensible adult, despite everything he’d gone through. He hadn’t known what he was doing.

Mr. Adler, apparently, had taken offense to that. He’d said some things, things Sam would rather not remember. He’d gone back to his and Dean’s apartment that night, and even Dean (emotionally obtuse as he is) had noticed that Sam was in a less than sunny mood. He’d refused to say why at the time, and it hadn’t been until later that he revealed it was because he was having troubles with his advisor.

Those troubles persist to this day, getting steadily worse and worse as time goes on. Mr. Adler dutifully fulfills his obligation to Sam by sending him curt emails about which classes he should and should not sign up for, and the few times when they actually see each other in person are filled with snide comments and thinly veiled looks of disdain on Mr. Adler’s part, feigned politeness on Sam’s.

So, he’s been thinking for a while about petitioning to be assigned a new advisor. They become…he doesn’t want to say less helpful, but less _necessary_ , after the first two years, but he still doesn’t want to see Zachariah Adler’s smug, hateful face any more often than he has to.

Maybe he can head down to advising once Dean is all sorted out, talk to someone else about the issue. That’s what the other advisors are there for, right?

Except a week passes, and Dean’s still not making plans to go and see his advisor, and there’s only like, a month left of Fall semester. Finally, Sam corners him.

“You have to take it next semester,” he says. “It’s called ‘first year seminar’, not ‘every year after your first’ seminar.”

“Stop being a smartass and help me out!”

“I told you! Go see your advisor! He’ll get you signed up for the one in the Fall!”

Dean falls moodily silent, and puts it off for another two days before Sam finally gets fed up enough to start making threats. He tells Dean that if he doesn’t make the appointment, he’ll start hiding Dean’s cassette tapes, and _finally_ he manages to make an impression. A few days later, Dean heads off to the advising center, and Sam is left on his own. He finishes his Spanish homework online, and then he does his reading for Psych, but both of those things combined don’t take much longer than a half-hour, and it’s a ten-minute drive to the campus. He has, at the very least, another twenty or thirty minutes before Dean gets home. It depends on how long he talks to his advisor, but still. Twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes is plenty of time to do a lot of things. Things your older brother might object to, if he were in the house.

Sam closes his laptop and then heads to his bedroom, toeing off his shoes and socks as he goes. He strips, and leaves his shirt and pants on his bed, boxers on the floor, and then he grabs a fresh towel from his closet, one of the soft, super fluffy ones that he secretly bought at Bath and Body Works (and if Dean ever finds out, Sam will never hear the end of it, which is why he keeps the towels hidden in his closet). He strolls, naked, down the hall into the bathroom, hanging up his towel and leaving the door open as he turns on the faucet to get the hot water going. As he waits, he examines himself in the mirror.

It’s been three months since he and Jessica broke up. She’d said that it wasn’t him, _really_ , and no, it wasn’t his brother, either. That she just wasn’t ready for the level of commitment that Sam was ready for. That she needed more time to sort out how she felt about herself, and Sam, however sweet, was only going to complicate things.

He halfheartedly tries to flex, but Sam’s never had the sheer bulk that Dean has. With a lot of work, sure, but right now he’s more sinew than straight up muscle. Maybe if he’d started working out? Maybe if he’d tried to talk to her more? Asked her how she was feeling?

Sam sighs, and then turns back to the tub and steps inside. He pulls up the shower tab and flinches briefly as the water begins to pelt his face and chest rather than his feet – the sudden transition from room temperature to _hot_ is startling.

He takes his time cleaning himself. When Dean is in the house, he always seems to find a way to cut Sam’s showers short – whether it’s by running the washing machine or the dishwasher, thus robbing Sam of all the hot water, or wanting to take his own shower, or else just wanting to talk (which Dean, despite his disdain of all things “chick flick”, likes to do _a lot_ ). Sam rarely has the time to take a long, indulgent hot shower, and now that Dean isn’t here it’s the only thing he wants.

 _Maybe I can go and see Brad’s advisor,_ he thinks. Brad’s advisor is a tall, imposing man named Rufus, but Sam’s heard some good things about him. Bad things, too, but he thinks that anyone might be better than Mr. Adler, at this point.

 _Thinking about school even in the shower,_ he realizes, not without a sense of mirth, and, after a moment of deep breathing, Sam closes his eyes, soap suds washing around his feet in a thick, white foam, and then he lets his hand wander across his stomach, mind carefully blank. He doesn’t want to think about Jessica – there’s too much about that that would make him feel wrong.

Afterwards, he dries himself off quickly, unable to fully enjoy the softness of his towel, the steam leftover from the hot shower. He needs to get this whole thing sorted out as soon as possible – Dean isn’t the only one with issues when it comes to advisors, and Sam has the feeling that his own are somehow interfering with the rest of his life. He _has_ to get out from under the thumb of Mr. Adler.

There are no other options.

~

Dean comes back about ten minutes after Sam finishes his shower, and he immediately drops down onto the couch in front of the television, looking tired, but…satisfied?

“You look happy,” Sam offers, and settles into the chair in front of the desk against the far wall, turning on the monitor of their ancient desktop and letting it wake up from its sleep. “I take it the meeting went well?”

“Pretty well, yeah.” Sam watches Dean reach into his pocket, drawing out a piece of folded paper. He smoothes it out, and then examines it closely, like it’s something worth studying. “I got some instructions to follow.”

“Forget about that,” Sam says. “How was your advisor? Was he nice?”

“He was quiet. But…nice, yeah. I mean, he didn’t tell me I was an idiot or anything.” Dean takes an audible breath, and then pushes himself up from the couch and crosses the room, hand extended, offering the piece of paper. Sam takes it, holds it for a moment, and then lays it out on the desk and tries to read it. The writing is… _Jesus_ , intense. It’s like looking at something from the sixteenth century or something, all beautiful, fancy script. Not printing, _script_.

“What the hell is all this?”

“Instructions,” Dean repeats. “For registering for classes.”

Sam shakes his head. “I can’t read any of this.”

“Really? Twenty-two years and you still can’t read my handwriting?”

“Maybe if I’d started studying it in utero, but no, Dean, I can’t read your handwriting, and I can’t read _this_.”

“But it’s all _neat_. And fancy.”

“It’s got…spirals and weird dots everywhere, Dean,” Sam laughs. “Come here and read this out to me, and I’ll help you register.” Sam swings around, fingers poised over the keyboard, ready to type in whatever information Dean gives him.

“You look like that goddamn monkey thing. From that movie.”

Sam pauses, and then swivels back around, wrinkling his nose. “ _Okay_ , a little more specificity would be nice. You know, if you’re going to insult me.”

“The one that likes fish. And rings.”

“I look like _Gollum_?”

“ _Yeah_.” And then Dean makes this hideous sound, like the sound a turkey might make if it were being strangled underwater, and Sam can’t help it, can’t keep himself from laughing.

“Knock it off, asshole. Read this out loud.” He picks up the piece of unintelligible paper, shoving it at Dean, and feels gratified when Dean actually takes it instead of making him decipher the script by himself.

“Log on to the university Portal website.”

“I’ve already done that.”

Dean pauses, as if confused. “You know my password?”

“You wrote it on a post-it note and stuck it to the side of the desk, Dean. You’re just lucky you don’t have a Facebook or anything, otherwise I would have…”

“Yeah, yeah, ruined my life with the internet, I get it. Log on to the Portal website, and then select ‘course registration’ from the sidebar. Select ‘Spring’. And then put in the numbers four, five, seven, eight, four, and three. Oh hey, by the way, I met this guy in the advising center.”

“Did he tell you your eyes were pretty and then give you his number?”

“ _Bitch_. I told him you’re a massive computer nerd, and he said to drop by sometime and…I don’t know, debate with him or something. Said his name was Gabriel.”

“Was he an advisor?”

“I think so, he had his own cubicle. Maybe you can start going to see him instead of Adler.”

“Maybe,” Sam sighs. He thinks about his inability to fully enjoy his shower, earlier, about how the specter of his current advisor had hung over him like a pall. He doesn’t want to go through his last two years like that – that’d be _awful_ , worrying all the time about what Mr. Adler will do or say next, what hurdles he might try to throw in the way of Sam’s graduation…He types the numbers that Dean had read off to him into the registration slots, and then hits the enter key.

“Congratulations,” he says. “You’re signed up for the basic first year seminar. You meet in Willard on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and your instructor is…huh.”

“What? What is it?”

“Nothing bad,” Sam says; he tries to sound reassuring. “Your instructor is your advisor. Castiel Novak.”

“Oh.” Dean sounds…not upset, not exactly, but surprised, maybe? Like this wasn’t something he would ever have expected. Sam swings back around, looking at him. He doesn’t just look _surprised_ \- he looks distracted. Like he’s a million miles away. And then, suddenly, he snaps back, and he’s focused on Sam again.

“Is everything okay?” Sam asks, because maybe Dean is worried about the time, or maybe the meeting didn’t go as well as Dean is saying it did, or else…

“I’m fine,” Dean says, and then carefully folds in half the piece of paper with the instructions on it. He pockets it, and then turns around and heads back to the couch; he sinks down into the cushions and then reaches for the remote, turning the television on and staring at it. Staring without really watching.

It’s not the reaction of a man who’s _fine_ , but it isn’t Dean being depressed or anything, either. So Sam lets it go.

For now.

~

Sam hates Zachariah Adler. That isn’t what’s in question. What’s in question is, “Will this Gabriel guy that Dean mentioned be even worse?” It’s hard to think of someone who might be a worse advisor than Mr. Adler, who seems to spend his days encased in a cocoon of hatred and bitter resentment towards his students, but Sam is uncomfortably aware of the fact that, no matter how extreme someone might seem, there’s generally someone out there who’s even more extreme. Sure, Dean seems to think that Gabriel is a nice dude, but he hasn’t met Sam yet.

Sam has realized, after a great amount of trial and error, that he tends to bring out either the worst or the best in people. Sometimes, as with his brother, he brings out both. It’s inconvenient, but it’s life.

Still, the only way of actually _checking_ is to swing by the administration building and see what Dean was talking about. So, on Friday, after his classes are finished (Fridays, by some happy accident of fate, have always been his easy days – he only has two classes on Fridays, this semester, and the second one ends by twelve), Sam shoulders his backpack, makes sure that his laptop is secured, and then hikes up the hill to the administration building. Winter is practically here, and the wind rushes through the trees, sounding like a freight train as it rattles the branches and causes the wood to creak. Sam makes sure he doesn’t deviate from the sidewalk, half afraid that one of the trees will give up the ghost and come crashing down on him.

He zips his jacket up to his chin, and shivers, and shoves his hands down as far as he can into his pockets. Making the journey from the academic buildings to the dorms and administrative buildings is always arduous, but doubly so when it’s _thirty degrees_ outside.

“Fuck,” he whispers, and his breath freezes around his mouth, a cloud of frozen words that dissipates as he passes it by. He’s shivering so hard that he thinks he might actually fracture something, and he practically sprints towards the building as it finally comes into view. This means running uphill, in the cold, and you’d think that that would result in a nice, warm glow, but he’s also running while wearing _fleece_. By the time he reaches the administration building’s front door he’s a sweaty, panting mess, his breath harsh in his own ears, his lungs burning. He pauses in order to grab at the front of his jacket, yanking the zipper down and letting it hang open as he gulps in air. At least he isn’t cold anymore.

“Should have thought that through,” he mutters, and then pulls his jacket closed again, before his sweat can start to freeze on his skin. He yanks open the front door, then steps into the warm, well-lit front hall of the administration building.

The whole place has the feel of a converted house – which it probably is – so Sam always feels weirdly like an intruder whenever he has business here. He wonders if that feeling is cultivated intentionally as he passes through the huge doorways, trying not to drag too much dirt across the lavish carpets and rugs.

The advising center is down in the basement of the building; Sam follows the winding stairways and the helpful “STUDENT ADVISING” signs until he comes to the maze of cubicles…

…At which point he realizes that he has no idea what Gabriel looks like. He doesn’t have a last name, or a description, or a map, or _anything_ , and there have to be at least twenty cubicles down here, not all of them reserved for advisors. Some of them are bound to be TAs, some of them are other administrative workers…Unless Sam wants to go cubicle to cubicle, asking if the person inside knows Gabriel, or happens to _be_ Gabriel, he’s sort of screwed.

He stands there, in the middle of the winding aisle between two cubicles, and considers exactly how much he does, in fact, hate his life sometimes.

“Well, geez. You look like you’re having a rough day. You lost, sunshine?”

Sam half-turns to face the direction the voice is coming from – one of the cubicles, as it turns out. It contains a small desk (upon which sits a nearly empty bag of Halloween candy, a cup that contains four pens with googly eyes pasted to the caps, and a picture of three guys, standing with their arms around each other’s shoulders), a rolling chair, a tiny bookcase that’s literally overflowing with books (as he watches, a few stray papers dislodge themselves and flutter, unnoticed, to the ground), and, of course, the speaker: a man, maybe in his mid thirties, sitting in the rolling chair, shoulders hunched as he leans over. His eyes are a peculiar color – not quite dark enough to be called brown, but neither are they bright enough to be called green. Sam stares at him, and then, remembering that he’s actually here for a _reason_ , he clears his throat.

“Uh, sort of. I’m looking for a guy named Gabriel? My brother came down here a few days ago, and…”

“I remember that guy. He got lost, too. Gabriel, huh? Follow me, then.”

The guy pushes away from his desk, standing and rolling his shoulders. He’s much shorter than Sam is, but that’s not really a surprise – most people are shorter than Sam, including his own brother. He can’t help but think, though, that this guy is short even by normal standards.

Sam shakes his head. _Focus_.

“So he’s here, then? I mean, he’s not on break or something?”

“You kidding?” The guy snorts. “ _On break_. No such thing.”

Sam doesn’t say anything, but the guy must see the skepticism in his expression, because he rolls his eyes. “What, you thought we all sat around down here twiddling our thumbs? Most of us are working on our own projects, too, on top of all the students we’re advising. And that’s a _lot_ of students, by the way. There are four-thousand students enrolled at this campus, and every single one of them needs to be assigned to one of twenty-five advisors. _Twenty-five_. That’s, what, roughly a hundred and forty kids to an advisor?”

“A hundred and sixty,” Sam corrects softly. The guy ignores him.

“So you can see _precisely_ how much work we have to do, just for this school. Counseling, telling kids how and why to schedule their classes, advising them on how to do better in their classes…”

They drift through the maze of cubicles as the guy talks; occasionally, a head will pop out into the aisle after them, observing their passage.

“…and don’t even get me started on how the other staff treats us. Those tech guys, _Jesus_. They think they’re so special.”

“They kind of are,” Sam chimes in. He doesn’t want to get into an argument, he’s not even sure he wants to get into a _debate_ , but…technology is invaluable, and he’s not just saying that as a computer nerd.

“Yeah? Then explain to me why I’ve called them _four times_ within the past day and a half, and they _still_ haven’t come down here to fix the copy machine?”

“Four-thousand students in a non-commuter university means that all the computer labs have to be in good condition, not to mention that two of our labs are open twenty-four hours a day. The wi-fi and Ethernet connections need to be monitored, the amount of data uploaded and downloaded needs to be checked…And it isn’t just computers that have to be taken care of, but all the other technology on the campus, too. Projectors, fax machines, printers, copy machines…”

“You’re one of _those_ people,” the guy laughs, and Sam’s brow furrows.

“What people?”

“You’re a nerd.” Sam doesn’t point out how insulting that sounds, coming from an advisor (or maybe not – does Sam have any proof that this guy is an advisor?); he just purses his lips and scowls. “Me, I like technology. I like my phone, I like my mp3 player. And I even like my laptop, when it isn’t being a fickle asshole. But _you_ …you _love_ this stuff. Unabashedly.”

“Are you saying that’s a bad thing?”

“I’m saying it’s different from what I think. I don’t really understand it, but differences make the world go ‘round, right?”

Sam smiles to himself. “That or love, I guess.”

“See, now you’re getting into _entirely_ unfamiliar territory. I don’t go in for that mushy ‘love’ crap.”

“I have trouble believing you’re an advisor.”

“Why, because of my devastatingly good looks and my winning personality?”

“You’re unprofessional.”

“Professionalism is for board meetings and job interviews, sunshine. I’m just like every other Joe Schmoe.”

They pass another cubicle, and then another, and then…

Sam pauses. “Wasn’t that your desk?”

The guy freezes. His mouth turns up at the corners. “No.”

Sam gapes. “It _was_ , that’s the same bag of candy! You’ve been leading me around in circles!”

“Can you blame me? I was worried I might die or turn into stone if I didn’t get some stimulating conversation soon.”

“You…!”

The guy _laughs_. His laugh is at once incredibly happy, but also incredibly sharp. It’s the laugh of a person who sometimes takes pleasure in the misfortune or frustration of others, something that Sam is observing firsthand.

“Tell your brother I said ‘hi’,” the guy says, taking a few steps backwards into his cubicle. “Sam, right? Yeah, Sam. It was nice talking to you. You ever need advisory help, swing by and ask for Gabriel Novak. I’ll do the best I can.”

At which point he disappears behind the cubicle wall, and Sam is left standing in the middle of the aisle, feeling lost and sort of angry, but also sort of amused.

“Dick,” he mutters, but it’s not vindictive, not the way he sometimes says Mr. Adler’s name. It’s just sort of…exasperated.

Sam adjusts his backpack, making sure the thing hasn’t fallen open, and then slowly makes his way out of the advising center, heading up the stairs and, eventually, back out into the cold.


End file.
